Thomas Wingfold. Volume III by George MacDonald

As the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew / to a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the / leaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them "yellow / and black and pale and hectic red," the fancy seized him to get out / of the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the / meadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she / gathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well. / He liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to / share it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful / nurse, feared it might hurt him.

"What DOES it matter? " he returned. "Is life so sweet that every / moment more of it is a precious boon? After I'm gone a few days, you / won't know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off / you! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it / would be to me to get into that meadow."